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“Last Wednesday it was half an hour. And no, I shit you not. Punch in and help Jesse move desks in the new wing.”
“The teacher’s pet,” Pat says, rolling his eyes.
Danny doesn’t reply, knowing anything he says at this point will be the wrong thing. His summer work kids are being paid by the school department. Danny doesn’t want to say or do something that will allow Pat Grady (or his folks) to go to the superintendent with a grievance about how he was hassled on the job. So he’s not going to call Pat a lazy little twerp. Probably he doesn’t have to. Pat sees it on his face and turns toward the supply room to punch in, hitching at his jeans with one hand. Danny doesn’t know if Pat is holding the other hand to his chest with the middle finger stuck out, but wouldn’t be surprised.
That kid will be gone by July, Danny thinks. And I’ve got other things to worry about. Don’t I?
Jesse is standing in the doorway of Room 12. Danny gives him a shrug. Jesse gives a cautious grin and goes back to moving desks. Danny plugs in the buffer. When Pat comes back from punching in—at that same lazy amble—Danny tells him to get busy moving desks in Room 10. He thinks if Pat says a single wiseass thing, he’ll fire him on the spot. But Pat keeps his mouth shut.
Maybe not entirely stupid, after all.
Danny keeps his phone in the glovebox of his Tundra so he won’t be tempted to look at it during working hours (he’s seen both Pat and Jesse doing exactly that—Jesse only once, Pat several times). When they knock off for lunch, he goes out to his truck long enough to look up the town of Gunnel. It’s in Dart County, ninety miles north. Not over the Nebraska line, but butting up against it. He could swear he’s never been in Dart County his whole life, not even as far north as Republic County, but he must have been at some point. He tosses his phone back in the glovebox and heads to where Jesse is eating his lunch—phone in hand—at one of the picnic tables in the shade of the gymnasium.
“Forgot to lock your truck. No beep.”
Danny grins. “Anyone who steals from it, good luck and welcome to what they get. Plus the truck itself has eaten her share of road. Got almost two hundred thousand miles on the clock.”
“Bet you love it, though. My dad loves his old Ford quarter-ton.”
“I sort of do. Seen Pat?”
Jesse shrugs. “Prob’ly eating in his car. He loves that old Mustie. I think he should take better care of it, but that’s just me. We gonna finish the new wing?”
“Gonna give it a try,” Danny says. “If we don’t, there’s always Monday.”
5
That night he calls his ex, a thing he does from time to time. He even went down to Wichita for her birthday in April, brought her a scarf—blue, to match her eyes—and stayed for cake and ice cream with her new guy. He and Margie get along a lot better since they split. Sometimes Danny thinks that’s a shame. Sometimes he thinks it’s just the way it should be.
They talk a little bit, this and that, people they know, her mother’s glaucoma and how Danny’s brother is doing at his job (fabulous), and then he asks if they ever drove north, maybe over into Nebraska, maybe to Franklin or Beaver City. Didn’t they have lunch one time in Beaver City?
She laughs—not quite her old mean laugh, the one that used to drive him crazy, but close. “I never would have gone to Nebraska with you, Danno. Ain’t Kansas borin enough?”
“You’re sure?”
“Posi-lute,” Margie says, then tells him she thinks Hal—her new guy—is going to pop the question pretty soon. Would he come to the wedding?
Danny says he would. She asks if he’s taking care of himself, meaning is he still off the booze. Danny says he is, tells her to look both ways before crossing the street (an old joke between them), and hangs up.
Never would have gone to Nebraska with you, Danno, she said.
Danny has been to Lincoln a couple of times and Omaha once, but those towns are east of Wilder, and Gunnel is dead north. Yet he must have been there and just forgot it. Maybe back in his drinking days? Except he never drove when he was out-and-out shitfaced, afraid of losing his license or maybe hurting somebody.
I was there. Must have been, back when that county road was still tarvy instead of packed dirt.
He stays up later than usual and tosses around quite a bit before finally dropping off, afraid the dream will come back. It doesn’t, but the next morning it’s as clear as ever: deserted gas station, half-moon, stray dog, hand, charm bracelet.
6
Unlike many men of his age and station, Danny doesn’t drink (not now, anyway), doesn’t smoke, doesn’t chew. He likes pro sports and might put five bucks down on the Super Bowl just to make it interesting, but otherwise he doesn’t gamble—not even two-buck scratch tickets on payday. Nor does he chase after women. There’s a lady in his trailer park he visits from time to time, Becky’s what used to be called a grass widow, but that’s more of a casual friendship than what the afternoon talk shows call “a relationship.” Sometimes he stays over at Becky’s place. Sometimes he brings her a bag of groceries or babysits her daughter if Beck has errands to run or an early evening hair appointment. There’s plenty of get-along between them, but love ain’t in it.
On Saturday morning he packs his dinnerbucket with a couple of sandwiches and a piece of the cake Becky brought over after he wired up the tailpipe of her old Honda Civic. He fills his Thermos with black coffee and heads north. He thinks he’ll feel like eating if he takes a look behind that deserted gas station and finds nothing. If he sees what he saw in his dream, probably not.
The GPS on his phone gets him to Gunnel by ten-thirty. The day is all Kansas, hot and bright and clear and not very interesting. The town is nothing but a grocery store, a farm supply store, a café, and a rusty water tower with GUNNEL on the side. Ten minutes after leaving it, he comes to County Road F and turns onto it. It’s tar, not packed dirt. Nevertheless his stomach is tight and his heart is beating hard enough so he can feel it in his neck and his temples.
Corn closes in on both sides. Feed corn, not eating corn. As in his dream, it’s not yet as high as an elephant’s eye, but it looks good for late June and will be six feet by the time August rolls around.
The road is tarvy and that’s different from the goddam dream, he thinks, but only two miles along the tar quits and then it’s packed dirt. A mile after that he stops dead in the road (which is no problem since there’s no traffic). Just ahead on his right is a county road sign, which has been defaced with spraypaint so it reads CUNT ROAD FUCK. There’s no way he saw that in his dream, but he did. The road is rising now. When he goes another quarter of a mile, maybe even less, he will see the squat shape of the abandoned gas station.
